Development Info Josh Sawyer on Utility and Balance in Game Design

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I think Hiver exploded.

 

[St. Toxic]

he never said anything about any of that shit.

I'm mostly talking about his past record with skill-systems, ala Van Buren.

I fact, he said exactly the opposite. He wants to have more character abilities and he wants to create content in which they can be actually useful. Over the whole game.
More abilities (skills) and more content.

Then maybe they should make that content first and create a skill-system around it? Nobody ever says 'less' of any positive element, it's like shitting yourself on the head and going out on the town, so I remain skeptical. I hate to tell you, Hiver, but we probably won't be sucking his dick together any time soon.

Why the fuck would you take it that way when everything he said is the opposite of that?

Hey man, if I added 1 skill to an empty skill-system, that's still +1 in a positive light. In reality, however, I'm butchering numerous potentially more fleshed out skill-systems.

Nah, no one's arguing for every build to be viable for every encounter.

Except the professional game-designer, you mean?

It is one thing when I fail due to my own ineptitude at making strategic decisions. It is different when you fail because you cannot into clairvoyance.

They're one and the same, unless you mean that every challenge should be transparently predictable.

 

[Moribund]

Nah, no one's arguing for every build to be viable for every encounter.

I'm certain you're mistaken here.

As in real life, you don't fight the fights you cannot win - you pick those you stand a fair chance, and hope for the best in the rest. A failure should be embeded in RPG design. You simply cannot succeed at everything... but you can try.

And doubly so here.

It is one thing when I fail due to my own ineptitude at making strategic decisions. It is different when you fail because you cannot into clairvoyance.

There's not going to be any real failing for anyone in PE. You get rewarded for it, that's the only time your skills improve and it's impossible to choose useless ones. I think this alone might be game ruining.

It's like level scaling but it scales YOU to be above the monsters at all times. It's got to be the worst idea I've heard. Something worse than any idea in DA, didn't even think that was possible.

 

[Infinitron]

I'll say it again, the problem with most of the Project Eternity-skeptics in this conversation is that they're approaching this game from a Fallout, heavily skill-based perspective, instead of from the D&D 3E CRPG perspective, where skills tended to be just one facet of your character's activity in the game.

 

[Mrowak]

They're one and the same, unless you mean that every challenge should be transparently predictable.

This is not a challenge. This is metagaming, whereby you go to square 1, because you didn't meet the arbitrary goals the game has set you. It's learning not about the gameworld or the game mechanics but of artificial boundaries that limit your character builds "just because" no one bothered to give viability to another set of solutions. Or botched character progression.

Again, why should there even be skills there are nearly useless? That are checked 2-3 times in entire campaign, if at all? Either you cut them out and polish what you have or make them meaningful and relevant to the context.

 

[Moribund]

I fact, he said exactly the opposite. He wants to have more character abilities and he wants to create content in which they can be actually useful. Over the whole game.
More abilities (skills) and more content.

No, you are wrong. Look at his F:NV solution for charisma making your thugs fight better.

Expect everything to be like that, things that work all the time.

Doctor skill gets used a few places in FO 2. I thought it was worthwhile, the implants are pretty cool for example. Yes you could use your speech to get the doctor to do it for you but it wasn't doctor was useless, but that speech was way overused in the game. And in my opinion a speech skill is a bit stupid in the first place.

Obviously if you put 200 into doctor (and who would possibly do that?) you'd gimp your character, though. And that's what he's complaining about. No possibility to gimp your character is acceptable to him.

So doctor would have to be simply removed. The only other solution would be that doctor starts having an effect in combat. Which is not totally lame except to make it appreciable it would have to have a lot of effect. My doctor fights just as good as my marksman who fights just as good as my lawyer! That's what he is saying, and it's crap. May as well play some bioware shit, ME isn't half that retarded, though DA comes close.

 

[Mrowak]

There's not going to be any real failing for anyone in PE. You get rewarded for it, that's the only time your skills improve and it's impossible to choose useless ones. I think this alone might be game ruining.

If skills are useless then why are they even there? Skills are actually the medium through which gameplay takes place. It's what both player and characters can do. Having useless skills defeats the purpose of gameplay.

Sure, not every skill should be the best solution in the given context, but the game ought to accomodate all of them and make them meaningful at all cost. Because they are the basic tools you will use in the interaction with the gameworld.

It's like level scaling but it scales YOU to be above the monsters at all times. It's got to be the worst idea I've heard. Something worse than any idea in DA, didn't even think that was possible.

Nothing like that has been stated.

 

[Infinitron]

Mrowak Don't feed the shitposters. :jaesun:

 

[Alex]

(...snip)
You could NOT balance it, in which case the combat encounters will be satisfying for only a minority of players who happen to pick parties for which the combat was balanced.

You could provide alternative options to circumvent the combat entirely... which, again, is only satisfying for a minority of players.

You could provide ways for these non-combat characters to affect each combat encounter positively. Like, the Thief could steal all their swords which makes it easier for your limited supply of actual fighters to win the fight. But this kind of design is actually shit too because then EVERY combat encounter must include ALL options for EVERY possible character. Which means your RPG is crap, once again.

My preferred option would be a mix of the all three above. Add in options for the non combat abilities to avoid combat. Add in unique circumstances for it to influence how combat goes. It doesn't need to be the same options every time, much less have all the options available everytime. If your party has access to the abilities of disguise, or can sneak around very well, if it has someone who can speak goblin and has a silver tongue, you can convince the upstart goblin warlord to help you when you fight the goblin king. So that when you get there, half of the goblin soldiers turn sides and help you instead. This doesn't need to always be available, just available often enough to make a difference.

So, what if there is no such option available to your party and the fight is too though? Well, maybe it isn't a fight for your party. Definitely, not every combat should be doable by everyone, I think. It is too often the case, and it is pretty lazy combat. Put in stuff that only a few groups can do. Make it have consequences down the line. Making a completely cmbat oriented party should have some reward, after all.

Or maybe you can come back later, after you have gotten a few experience levels. I mean, I am thinking PE won't be so linear that at any given moment, you have only one place to explore. If a place has something you can't overcome yet, maybe you can go somewhere else, get a couple of levels, or maybe find a specific weapon or spell to use against whatever it is that is blocking you. And hopefully, having to stop to go back and then come back will have consequences too! So, if a party managed to get through the orc mines at 5th level in 3 days, it might be able to save the hostages there.

Whereas a group that had to turn back and come back in the following month will find the orcs not only sold them into slavery, but also used the money to increase their forces. While this example the later groups is losing, this need not to be the only kind of consideration. Maybe a halfway group, that takes a fortnight, will find a few of the slaves dead, but will be able to interrupt the orcs negotiations with the giants, discovering who was financing their operations (something the first group could have missed).

Also, of course, some encounters will always end up being more or less difficulty for different parties. But if you plan your maps and interactions right, characters will have a host of options besides fleeing. Negotiating, bribing, fleeing, drawing into a trap, etc. This ties in with using your skills to affect battles, but is also important to remember that we are not talking about a tactical ame here. The battles are not a series of set pieces the characters are supposed to walk through. Different ways, avoidance, sneaking and what not can all be used to change the parameters of a fight, or make it not even occur in first place.

You could split combat skills from non-combat skills. ........ Hmmmmmmmm.

I can't help but think this option fosters "lazy" design. Rather than making the world varied, full of interesting and asymmetrical choices, it makes sure things are much more ordered, but also boring. It feels like those fast food joints where you pick a base sandwich (class) and a sauce to put on top, instead of getting access to the kitchen and cooking whatever you feel like. I mean, sure, most, if not all, rpgs up to now filed short of letting you "cook whatever you want", but giving up and making things much more standarized is the opposite of what I wanted.

 

[Delterius]

Actually, I'm pretty sure he's complaining if Doctor didn't have any use at all. Like in Realms of Arcania where some skills that, by all reasons, should be useful aren't.

 

[Roguey]

There shouldn't be any bad choices.

That's horrid.

Let me get this straight, the Codex, a place that will defend the need for you to be able to fail at any game if you're an idiot throughout, somehow is fine with making an exception of this for character creation, making character creation a "no-fail" gameplay element, because...What makes character creation different?

I don't see character creation as a win/loss scenario. It's making trade-offs. I'm good at these things, I'm bad at these things. A RPG where you think you're making a good character but it turns out to be bad at tackling most of the content and good at content that's barely supported? Terrible.

For Frith's sake, isn't Eternity going to offer a respec?

Doesn't excuse having bad options.

I actually like having to dive into and learn a game to be able to properly construct my character.

Me too but there's a lot of info up-front that you don't know about. Even if it comes with a manual.

Good example that Josh has used before: Clubs in Icewind Dale: http://mikesrpgcenter.com/icewind/weapons/clubs.html
"Suckerrrrrrrr. Should have gone with maces!"

Every possible character build has to be exactly as useful.

Never said that. Every possible character build should be good at certain things, bad at others and there should be plenty of things.

Transplant all this logic to a Bethesda/BioWare design blog. And be honest with yourself. Would you still be defending it?

Yep.

 

[Moribund]

You hurt me so with your biting wit, infinitron Tell me again when it comes out how wrong I was, or that I was trolling.

There's not going to be any real failing for anyone in PE. You get rewarded for it, that's the only time your skills improve and it's impossible to choose useless ones. I think this alone might be game ruining.

If skills are useless then why are they even there? Skills are actually the medium through which gameplay takes place. It's what both player and characters can do. Having useless skills defeats the purpose of gameplay.

Sure, not every skill should be the best solution in the given context, but the game ought to accomodate all of them and make them meaningful at all cost. Because they are the basic tools you will use in the interaction with the gameworld.

It's like level scaling but it scales YOU to be above the monsters at all times. It's got to be the worst idea I've heard. Something worse than any idea in DA, didn't even think that was possible.

Nothing like that has been stated.

Stated by who? By you?

It's been stated by sawyer. There's no experience points for killing stuff. You power up or get skill points when you die or fail tasks. You should never be able to gimp a character. All that has been said by him.

If skills are useless then why are they even there? Skills are actually the medium through which gameplay takes place. It's what both player and characters can do. Having useless skills defeats the purpose of gameplay.

Useless according to who, though? Doctor is the example people usually give for fallout, along with science. They didn't get used all the time but I find them to be great uses for skills beyond shoot em up bang bang.

People complain they gimped their characters but how can you not realize you need to worry about fighting skills in an RPG?

Where does all this inanity come from and why is Sawyer so desperate to 'fix' these 'problems'? Because of decline, least common denominator, stupid people.

Combat was just a chore in bloodlines because of similar decisions, now it will be even more inane.

 

[Arkadin]

I'll say it again, the problem with most of the Project Eternity-skeptics in this conversation is that they're approaching this game from a Fallout, heavily skill-based perspective, instead of from the D&D 3E CRPG perspective, where skills tended to be just one facet of your character's activity in the game.

This is possible. However, they haven't made it clear either way, have they?

If the skills are going to have a similarly restricted implementation as found in D&D, which I'd be quite alright with, why have they kept talking about skills? I assumed that even though PE is "party-based" in terms of gameplay, it only allows initial creation of a single character, and thus they're probably giving skills a greater role just for the sake of character customization, which then must have their effects on gameplay to make them worthwhile.

I agree with St. Toxic, though, that it would fine be for them to do away with skill point allocation altogether. That may be a better fit if they were allowing full party creation at the beginning of the game, though.

 

[Infinitron]

I'll say it again, the problem with most of the Project Eternity-skeptics in this conversation is that they're approaching this game from a Fallout, heavily skill-based perspective, instead of from the D&D 3E CRPG perspective, where skills tended to be just one facet of your character's activity in the game.

This is possible. However, they haven't made it clear either way, have they?

If the skills are going to have a similarly restricted implementation as found in D&D, which I'd be quite alright with, why have they kept talking about skills? I assumed that even though PE is "party-based" in terms of gameplay, it only allows initial creation of a single character, and thus they're probably giving skills a greater role just for the sake of character customization, which then must have their effects on gameplay to make them worthwhile.

I agree with St. Toxic, though, that it would fine be for them to do away with skill point allocation altogether.

Isn't it obvious? The game is an Infinity Engine successor. For the Fallout model see Wasteland 2. Now that's a skill-based game.

Also, they haven't talked about skills that much. It's just that people keep bringing skills up because Codexers are obsessed with the Fallout model and can't imagine anything else.

 

[Mrowak]

I'll say it again, the problem with most of the Project Eternity-skeptics in this conversation is that they're approaching this game from a Fallout, heavily skill-based perspective, instead of from the D&D 3E CRPG perspective, where skills tended to be just one facet of your character's activity in the game.

This is possible. However, they haven't made it clear either way, have they?

If the skills are going to have a similarly restricted implementation as found in D&D, which I'd be quite alright with, why have they kept talking about skills? I assumed that even though PE is "party-based" in terms of gameplay, it only allows initial creation of a single character, and thus they're probably giving skills a greater role just for the sake of character customization, which then must have their effects on gameplay to make them worthwhile.

I agree with St. Toxic, though, that it would fine be for them to do away with skill point allocation altogether.

Isn't it obvious? The game is an Infinity Engine successor. For the Fallout model see Wasteland 2. Now that's a skill-based game.

Also, they haven't talked about skills that much. It's just that people keep bringing skills up because Codexers are obsessed with the Fallout model and can't imagine anything else.

I'd argue that in IE games skills were represented by a wide selection of spells - they represented what the player could actually do through characters. Without them those games would be pretty lackluster combatwise (which, with the exception of PS:T, was the main gameplay focus).

 

[Roguey]

....

Saved?

it was worse?

I refuse to believe it.

EDIT:

Also, didn't Ferret WRITE the game and not design encounter? Or am I messing things up?

Ferret was the lead designer, he wrote the story outline and was responsible for the high level design and goals. Josh came in during the last six months of production and was focused almost entirely on cutting features/content and fixing bugs (he and Ziets also managed to quickly cram in some additional backstory for the King of Shadows so he became less of a generic evil villain). He had nothing to do with the combat.

 

[Moribund]

Isn't it obvious? The game is an Infinity Engine successor. For the Fallout model see Wasteland 2. Now that's a skill-based game.

Also, they haven't talked about skills that much. It's just that people keep bringing skills up because Codexers are obsessed with the Fallout model and can't imagine anything else.

Too bad you're wrong about this. Everything he's said goes against it.

DnD doesn't fit in with realtime, we now have the opportunity to draw on other games which are designed for realtime for inspiration. All of which would are skill based.

No vancian magic. Get skillpoints based on failure. No experience for killing stuff.

Obviously you're wrong. It's not going to have one thing in common with DnD, and it will be skill/ability based.

 

[Johannes]

Okay, Josh has responded to my comment: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/403090463432669271

Melnorme
You didn't address the "party-based" part of my question, though. _Should_ players even care how well any individual character in the party performs compared to another as long as the party as a whole manages to perform its tasks adequately?

Melnorme
Also, FYI, the reason I write "balance" in quotes is because I'm not sure the definition of balance you're thinking of is the same one most people think of when they read the word "balance". Balance of what? Power? Usefulness? Choose your words carefully.

JESawyer
Yes, they should still care because if there are weird imbalances in the party that are assumed to be solved with a "correct" party composition, that implicitly suggests "incorrect" party compositions. It's pretty common in D&D groups to "need" a healer.

JESawyer
Arguably in BG2 there are places where you absolutely need an arcane spellcaster. I think that limits potential party compositions and is not a benefit to the player.

JESawyer
I think we should move away from class designs that shove classes into a niche that have little/no overlap with other classes and then make content that effectively demands you have a character of class x/y/z to move forward.

JESawyer
From my perspective, it's actually not important if the player doesn't care about individual class balance. But I'm the designer, not the player. I can't see any benefit for myself or players for me to *not* consider balance and utility in their design.

His assessment of D&D/BG party creation is kinda off af far as I'm concerned. What makes it interestin is that you "need" different things - lockpicking/trap detection, arcane spells, clerical spells, physical DPS. Then you form out a party that somehow fills all these different niches, be it with the varying single-classes, multiclasses, or dual-classes. Actually forming smaller than max size parties is often more interesting to me since you need to cover more ground with less.
Of course it's not completely mandatory to have all these different bases covered, even if it makes life simpler - you can carefully design a party that doesn't have X, but then you should have some Y in mind that compensates for that weakness.


And what's more weird is that he implies D&D classes don't have enough overlap - because they have a ton! Fighter vs. barbarian vs. ranger, cleric vs. druid vs. druid/fighter vs. cleric/mage... Even with leaving the various dual/multi classes out, you have 3 different choices for that "mandatory" arcane spellcaster spot, for example.

 

[Infinitron]

Well he's obviously referring to the basic archetypes, not to different types of warriors or different types of mages. Read the rest of our exchange.

 

[Johannes]

Oh and when the game will have a single protagonist plus recruitables... There's even less of a problem with that you occasionally must have a character with ability X. If you don't have such at such moment, you go and hire one for that task.

Well he's obviously referring to the basic archetypes, not to different types of warriors or different types of mages. Read the rest of our exchange.

What's your point?

 

[Captain Shrek]

....

Saved?

it was worse?

I refuse to believe it.

EDIT:

Also, didn't Ferret WRITE the game and not design encounter? Or am I messing things up?

Ferret was the lead designer, he wrote the story outline and was responsible for the high level design and goals. Josh came in during the last six months of production and was focused almost entirely on cutting features/content and fixing bugs (he and Ziets also managed to quickly cram in some additional backstory for the King of Shadows so he became less of a generic evil villain). He had nothing to do with the combat.

Then who the hell designed the combat experience?

I have now a deep suspicion that everyone is trying to wipe their hands off that shit.

 

[Moribund]

Obviously no one did, that's the problem. And it's probably single most important thing for a game like that to avoid bonechilling boredom.

 

[Hormalakh]

holy crap...he wants to have 6 exact party members be a viable choice for party composition.... if not "needing" certain party classes didn't matter, then what's the point of classes?

i'm done with this... so sad i actually spent money on this. well good night everyone. i'll see you guys in 10 years.

 

[Roguey]

Then who the hell designed the combat experience?

I have now a deep suspicion that everyone is trying to wipe their hands off that shit.

Define combat experience. The adaptation of the system is on Baudoin. Act 1 content was John Lee, Act 2 was Eric Fenstermaker, George Ziets (though I think both of them came in late on the project, definitely certain on Ziets), and Jeff Husges. Act 3 was Constant Gaw and Tony Evans.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Then who the hell designed the combat experience?

I have now a deep suspicion that everyone is trying to wipe their hands off that shit.

Define combat experience. The adaptation of the system is on Baudoin. Act 1 content was John Lee, Act 2 was Eric Fenstermaker, George Ziets (though I think both of them came in late on the project, definitely certain on Ziets), and Jeff Husges. Act 3 was Constant Gaw and Tony Evans.

Combat experience as in the actual encounters and the pacing between quests (as in the killing trash mobs part). NOT the area design by itself ( I LIKED the area design).